#mumbai #26/11 #terror #india #pakistan #thesiege #ajmalkasab #mumbai5thanniversary Good morning! How is everyone? Dreary, wet morning here... :-( We have a new lead story about a new book which charts the events of the Mumbai terror attack of 26/11 2008. British journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark have put together a brilliant book, The Siege, which charts almost by the hour what happened inside the Taj Palace Hotel, which was under siege for 3 days. We spoke to Scott-Clark. The authors take on all the big questions and are especially good on Pakistan and how the terrorists were recruited and trained and why Lashkar-e-Toiba, the terror outfit responsible, abandoned their usual operations in Kashmir, for something far more spectacular and headline grabbing. Its a hugely readable book, written almost like a fictional thriller, but then this is actually about the horrible grisly reality of what started that night and went on for 3 days there. There are some amazing survival stories, we could have easily written another 1,000 words on this - there are characters who at the beginning seem destined to die a violent and painful death - but miraculously survived, and there were many brave people who thought with their heads and outwitted the terrorists, despite the odds being against them - including a US Indian Marine and a South African security expert caught amid the horror unfolding in the Taj. As Nairobi shows, there is probably likely to be a similar sort of assault somewhere - it could even be in India again - have lessons been learnt? Scott-Clark thinks not enough. There is a personal interest - we were in Mumbai, just before, in fact had they got through the choppy waters when they first launched their boat to get to Mumbai, September 27, we would have been there. We know someone who was in the Leopold Cafe and survived but not without a bullet wound - he now has to carry a letter when he travels and goes through airport security saying he has a piece of metal trapped inside his body. If you are interested in any aspect of the Mumbai terror attack, this is a great book to read...see the home page for the image of the book... asianculturevulture/portfolios/inside-taj-attack-mumbai-terror-261/
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 09:30:02 +0000
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